


With Love

by JCapasso



Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:27:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 22,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28386240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JCapasso/pseuds/JCapasso
Summary: After Duke's death, Nathan realizes that Audrey loved him more than she did Nathan so when the new barn popped up, he had an idea. He could go back in time and fix it all.
Relationships: Audrey Parker/Nathan Wuornos, Duke Crocker/Audrey Parker
Comments: 18
Kudos: 13





	1. Chapter 1

The last thing Nathan saw was the Aether lance coming at Audrey. He’d jumped in front of her and now he was waking up, seeing Croatoan walking away from him and Audrey apparently frozen. There was something in the man’s stance though. The way he was carrying himself. Defeat. Resignation. It gave Nathan an idea. “Wait,” he called before Audrey could be unfrozen. When Croatoan turned to look at him he asked, “Why? Why save me?” 

“Because my daughter was right. I can’t love her like you do. I don’t know how. But I want to,” Croatoan admitted. 

“Maybe there’s a way to help her more,” Nathan said as he slowly got to his feet. “Don’t unfreeze her yet.” 

“I was already planning to leave. To let this barn take me and let the two of you have your life. Free of the troubles,” Croatoan said with a sigh. 

“That’s all well and good, but there would still be something missing. Something we might be able to give back to her,” Nathan suggested. 

“What’s that?” Croatoan asked hopefully. There wasn’t much he wouldn’t do or give for his daughter right now. 

“As much as she loves me, there is someone else…/was/ someone else that she loved more,” Nathan said sadly. “This barn has time travel capabilities like the other one right?” 

Vince came out of the crystal at that to answer the question. He saw the redemption attempt by Croatoan and couldn’t help but wonder what Nathan’s idea was. Most importantly, Croatoan wouldn’t be able to answer that question. “It does, but such things aren’t to be taken lightly,” he told Nathan.

“I know. But if we could save the last barn…” Nathan said, hoping that Vince would see the value in it. 

“To take you back in time would attune you to the barn. Both versions of it since this is the same controller crystal as the last,” Vince told him. “Your connection would replace Audrey’s and the barn would be coming for you instead of her.” 

“Even better,” Nathan sighed happily. 

“So you want to go back and then leave her?” Croatoan asked distastefully, having seen how much it hurt her when he’d left this time. “What happened to loving her?” 

“I plan to give her who she really loves first,” Nathan told him before turning to Vince. “Can this one show memories like the last?” 

Vince nodded and activated that feature causing a scene to show on the walls. Audrey was leaning over Duke’s body in the precinct as Nathan sat on the floor outside the door, knees hugged to his chest and his head buried in his arms. He had needed to get out of there and said he was taking a walk, but hadn’t been able to go far, so when Dwight and Gloria had gone to get the freezer truck, he heard everything Audrey said to Duke. 

“God, Duke,” Audrey sobbed. “I-I’m so sorry. Th-this is all my fault. I…I took your strength for granted. I thought you would always be strong enough because you’re the strongest person I’ve ever known. I…I should have told you that. I should have told you so much. I…I should never have let you die without knowing what you meant to me.” She laid her head on his still chest as she cried. “I love you, Duke. So much. I know you never felt the same, but…but it was always you for me. No matter how much I love Nathan, it could never compare to how much I love you, so…wherever you are…know that you are /so/ loved. And I will never stop loving you. Or missing you. But I’ll try to have a good life anyway. Because I know that’s what you would have wanted for me. Goodbye, Duke. I’ll never forget you.” The last was said in a whisper as she fell to her knees and the memory ended. 

“So you see,” Nathan told Croatoan. “You completely destroyed the man she truly loved. In a far worse way than you ever did me. I want to give that back to her.”

“Why? She said that he doesn’t love her,” Croatoan pointed out. 

“She was wrong,” Nathan told him. 

“Even I know that,” Vince chimed in. 

“Duke loved her just as much as I do. Maybe even more. He sacrificed more for her than even she knows. He stepped aside because he thought she wanted me. We both did,” Nathan said sadly. 

“To take you back before the first barn was destroyed would require his will,” Vince said looking at Croatoan before adding the icing on top. If his change of heart was to be believed of course. “You do not have the love required to take away the troubles here. If we were to go with your plan, she would have to come with us to provide that component.” 

“But I can power it enough to go back in time?” Croatoan asked hesitantly. It would mean taking him back to a time when he was trapped in the void. And changing events in such a way that he would likely remain there for the foreseeable future. 

“Yes. The normal functions of the barn simply require the connection to the Aether, but the troubles are rooted in hate and only love can remove them,” Vince told him. 

“Then I’ll do it,” he said shakily, turning to look at his still frozen daughter before turning back to Nathan. “If you promise to tell her…”

“I promise,” Nathan nodded, not needing that sentence completed. “I’ll tell her about you and that you love her and about your sacrifice. You understand though that we can’t risk letting that past you out of the void.”

“I know,” Croatoan said with a nod as he closed his eyes. “He will destroy her just as surely as I almost did. And with her loving a Crocker…it would be even worse. As long as she knows…I can live with that.” 

“I’ll make sure she does,” Nathan promised. “I wish there was some way I could share memories with her like the barn does,” he sighed. 

“I might be able to do that,” Croatoan said hopefully. If Nathan would share the memories of him, this one in particular, it would be even better than hearing about it. “You have so much Aether in your system now that modifying your trouble should be easy. You would still need skin contact since your trouble is touch based. My skill in such matters is not as great as my daughter’s to change it completely, but I should be able to make you able to gather and share memories and even emotions…If you will allow me?” 

Nathan considered that for a moment. Letting Croatoan fiddle with his trouble was not the smartest thing that he had ever considered, but he did seem genuine. And if he really did want Nathan to share memories of him with his daughter then it would be in his best interests to do so. If he wanted to hurt him, there were much better ways. He didn’t even have to heal him a few minutes ago. Even if there were side effects, it would still be worth it. 

Before Nathan could decide, Vince told him, “It would only stick until the barn comes. Once you enter it for the first time to remove the troubles, it will negate any trouble that you have and give you the same immunity that Audrey has to them.”

“Then yeah,” Nathan decided. “Okay, but…I want your word…on your daughter’s life…that this isn’t a trick. That you will do what you say and only what you say.” 

“On my daughter’s life, you have my word,” Croatoan said solemnly, getting a curt nod from Nathan. He reached up to grab one more piece of Aether. “To bind my intent to you,” he explained as he crushed it in his hand and held it out towards Nathan. Nathan opened his shirt and coat, allowing Croatoan to place the hand on his chest. There was a slight burning sensation before he pulled away. “It is done.” 

“Can we test it?” Nathan asked hopefully. 

“Take my hand. I will share with you some memories that I’d like you to give her?” Croatoan offered, holding out his hand. 

Nathan only hesitated for a moment before he took it and then there was a steady stream of memories entering his mind. He had to close his eyes since the difference in time passing between his mind and his eyes was more than a little disorienting, the memories playing as fast as his mind could process them. Memories of Mara as a little girl. Her illness. His pain at her impending death. Croatoan skipped the madman that he became after that and jumped ahead to now. The way he felt when he first saw her again. Trying to take care of her in that house when she resisted at every turn, and then today. Nathan couldn’t just see the memories. He could feel them too. Everything that Croatoan had felt at every moment of each memory. Thankfully, he found that he could compartmentalize the foreign memories. Or at least these ones. Hopefully all of them. Otherwise it would get confusing after a while. 

Once the stream was done, Nathan decided to throw the guy a bone and share some of his own memories. Just to test that it worked that direction too, of course. He showed him relaxed days full of laughter and joy. Audrey’s love of life and the compassion that she embodied. Nathan made sure not to give him any private moments, but hoped that he got across enough for Croatoan to fully understand who Audrey was and judging by the tears in the former monster’s eyes when he finished, he had apparently succeeded.


	2. Chapter 2

“What are we going to tell her?” Vince motioned to the still frozen Audrey. 

Nathan considered that for a long moment before deciding, “We tell her that she needs to go with you. I want to get some memories from her too and when we say goodbye I’ll be able to get them.” 

“You don’t plan to tell her the truth?” Vince asked. 

“She won’t share the memories I need if she knows. She’ll try to shield me from it,” Nathan told them. He knew how Duke thought. How unworthy of love he felt. He would need the proof of how much Audrey loved him before he could let himself believe it, and Audrey would never want to hurt him by showing him that. Not to mention, she would never let him take her place in the past barn. No, it was better that she not know. “This version of her will disappear as soon as I go back anyway.” 

“There is one more thing that you should know,” Vince told him before Audrey could be unfrozen. 

“What’s that?” Nathan asked. 

“Only one version of a person can exist at a time. Since this version of you is stronger with the Aether running through your body, your past self will die the moment you appear in the past,” Vince explained. 

“Can we make sure that it’s a time when I was at home alone so that no one else knows?” he asked hopefully. If there was one thing he knew how to do it was dispose of a body. 

Vince nodded before saying, “You must understand that I cannot allow too much interference with the timeline. I will only give you two weeks before the barn. You will have to do what you need to do in that time.” Even that much was a gift. He really only needed to be back right before it for the true purpose of this trip, but Vince understood his secondary purpose and wanted to give that a chance at least. He just couldn’t risk things going even more wrong with their trip to the fifties so he couldn’t take him back until after that. 

When Nathan nodded, Croatoan unfroze Audrey and she jumped into Nathan’s arms, hugging him tightly. She’d thought that he was dead. “Thank you,” she told her father gratefully. 

“You’re right. I would not die for you like Nathan,” Croatoan told her. “But I will leave for you.” 

“What?” she asked in shock. 

“There’s nothing here for me without you,” he said sadly. “And there’s nothing for me back home without you by my side.” He pulled the crystal out of his pocket. “So, yes. I will power the barn. Take the Aether, and your troubles forever. Vince. Let’s go.” 

“I don’t think this is possible. This won’t work.” He looked at Croatoan. “/You/ won’t work.” 

“Why? To power the barn you need Aether, activated in living form…me.”

“I need more for the huge power necessary for a barn,” Vince played his part, helped by the fact that it was all true. “The Aether needs a catalyst. A complimentary energy to supercharge it. The same energy it has always needed. Love. The energy it needed when she went in as Lucy and as Sarah. You do not have that.” 

“I do,” Audrey said shakily. She had more of that than she could handle some days. “Just…let me say goodbye?” she asked them, getting nods before turning to Nathan and pulling him outside. 

Nathan pulled her into a slow loving kiss, knowing that it would be one of his last. That he wouldn’t be pursuing her in the past. He knew that he needed to get memories for Duke but he still wanted at least a few for himself too. He placed his hand to her cheek and asked, “Do you remember our first kiss?” 

“I remember all our kisses,” she said with a smile, not realizing that the memories were flooding his mind as she thought of them. 

Nathan could feel the love that she felt for him in every memory, but even without the comparison yet, he could tell that it would be stronger for Duke. He knew that it would hurt getting that, but there was nothing that he wouldn’t do to make her happy. To give her the life she deserved. “I think…before you go…we should take a few minutes to…to remember Duke. I mean, I have forever to mourn him, but you…you won’t remember soon and I just…think he deserves that, you know?” 

Audrey swallowed heavily and nodded, leaning her head against Nathan’s. “I don’t blame you, you know? I want you to know that. You did what you had to do. What he wanted you to do,” she said shakily as she remembered Duke’s last moments and everything leading up to it. How awful he’d felt when he was being controlled, how he’d come back, how he’d begged them to save him the last way they could. In death. 

Nathan had been right. What she felt for him was only a pale shadow of the all-consuming love she felt for Duke. He had also been right that it hurt, but it also made it better too. He wasn’t just giving her up for nothing. What she felt for Duke was more even than he felt for her. He would make her happier than anyone else ever could. That made it easier. “I want you to know that I’m okay with Colorado,” he told her, trying to get her to think about that memory. Not that he /wanted/ it per se, but he would need to give it to Duke. To prove that it really /had/ meant something to Audrey. He just hoped that they’d been telling the truth that it hadn’t gone beyond kissing. He really didn’t want to see it if it had. 

Nathan found himself almost bowled over by that memory. The intensity of it. The love and lust and an entire jumble of other emotions so strong that he nearly stumbled. The rejection and hurt that she felt when he didn’t stop her from leaving. More than that though was the way that Duke was just so much there for her. Nathan had never seen that side of Duke and he understood now how Audrey could love him so much. So much that had never made sense about Duke did now that he had seen him with his façade stripped away. That persona that he always wore around other people. That memory was followed by another memory apparently from Colorado. A photo album that Duke had taken to help her learn more about James’ life. 

“Remember how he used to bring you coffee in the mornings?” Nathan said with a slight chuckle, wanting some of the quieter moments to round things out and this brought on a long stream of memories. Nathan hadn’t realized just how often Duke had done it, having only seen a few himself. Those led to a late night one that he soon figured out was when Lady Justice was after Duke. Getting those memories just made him understand even more how he’d lost the race before he’d really begun. Duke just understood her in a way that Nathan never could. He could communicate in ways that were beyond Nathan. He was more like the ever-present support system while Nathan was more the ‘charge in when there was a problem’ type. Nathan was more than glad that he’d done this now. That understanding made it so much easier to let her go. 

Audrey shook off the memories. Thinking about Duke hurt so much and she still needed to say goodbye to Nathan too. She got why he wanted to do this though. Duke had been both of their best friend and he wanted to take a few moments to remember him with the one person who could understand before she was lost forever. “We don’t have much more time,” she whispered. 

“I know,” Nathan sighed. “I wish that I didn’t have to lose you.” 

“Me too,” she said sadly. “I wish we had more time.” 

“We’ll always want more time,” Nathan told her. “The trick is making the most of what we had and I think we did pretty good at that don’t you?” 

“Yeah. We did,” she sniffled.

“Do you remember when Tommy killed me? And Moira brought me back?” he asked, wanting to grab that memory too and it came streaming into his mind. He hadn’t realized before that she had said that she loved him while he was dead. Duke’s assumptions made a little more sense now. “Everything since then has been a gift.”

“A wonderful gift,” she whispered before kissing him deeply. “I love you, Nathan.”

“I know,” he said honestly. Just because she loved someone else more didn’t take away from what she felt for him. “I love you too, Audrey and I will love you as long as I exist.” Because once he came out of the barn as someone else, he wouldn’t remember her anymore. Nathan wouldn’t exist anymore. 

“Goodbye, Nathan,” she said as the tears dripped down her cheeks. 

“Goodbye, Audrey,” he breathed out as she stepped inside. 

Vince came over and motioned to the top step of the building. “This is the best place to stand if you want to watch us go.” The look Vince gave him told Nathan the true meaning. From here he would be in the wash of the barn and could be dropped off back in time.


	3. Chapter 3

One minute, Nathan was standing on the armory steps, the next second he was standing next to his bed looking at his own dead body. He hadn’t anticipated how unsettling this would feel and he couldn’t help but shudder. He made a quick check of the date and realized that it was right after they’d come back from the fifties and according to the time he would have about five hours to get rid of the body before he had to go to work. He considered his options for a few minutes before he realized that he only had to keep it from being found for about two weeks. Then he would be gone in the barn and would need a cover story for his disappearance anyway. 

Leaving it here definitely wasn’t an option though, despite the fact that no one ever came here. The smell alone would be a nightmare. He finally decided to just dump it in the river. It should be at least three weeks before it surfaced there if he was careful and he would let Audrey know where it was so that she could ‘find’ it if they needed a body before it was found. He gave another shudder as he hoisted his own dead body over his shoulders and got it in the Bronco under cover of night. By the time he got back home the sun was starting to come up and he was more than glad that it was Saturday. He had already been up for two days before this so he went inside to take a nap before he got to the things he needed to do. He started to head for the bed before detouring to the couch. He wasn’t sleeping in that bed again until after he changed the bedding which he was too exhausted to do right now. It didn’t matter that the body had only been there for about ten minutes. It still creeped him out. 

He woke up a little after noon and made a quick sandwich for the road. He really should have handled this particular business first thing, but there was only so long a human being could go without sleep. He would have been more likely to make a mistake and miss his chance while he was that tired. He parked a ways away from the old plant that Arla was using as her hideout and crept up on it on foot, gun drawn and ready to shoot if he was spotted. He wished he could have saved Claire, but she was already gone, as proven by the fact that he saw her burying a body in the dumping ground. He didn’t even hesitate, just moved around the corner and put five bullets into her before she even noticed him and then went over to make extra sure she was dead. That was one complication that they absolutely didn’t need. 

With that done, he just had to worry about securing Audrey’s happiness for when he was gone, so his next stop was the Grey Gull. Or more specifically, the Cape Rouge. He knew that Duke would be the harder sell, so that’s where he would start. “Hey Duke, you here?” he called as he walked in, knowing that he would be if the hatch was open. 

“What now?” Duke asked wearily as he came out of the kitchen drying his hands. 

Nathan resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he remembered just how tired they were in this time, thinking the troubles were so bad. They didn’t know the meaning of tired yet. Instead, he got right down to business. “I’m from the future,” Nathan said bluntly. 

“Uh-huh,” Duke said skeptically. 

“Oh come on. We just spent a day back in the fifties. Why is this so hard to believe?” Nathan chuckled. 

Duke huffed and went to get two glasses and poured them both some bourbon. They would probably need it if Nathan was telling the truth. “How far into the future then?” 

“Two years,” he told him. 

“And you’re here because…what? You got some kind of evidence on me and you’re planning to arrest me?” Duke asked with narrowed eyes. 

This time Nathan did roll his eyes. “Yeah, I forgot we weren’t particularly close at this time,” he muttered. 

“You’re saying we were close in the future?” Duke scoffed. 

“Like brothers,” Nathan told him. 

“And you expect me to believe that?” 

“I can show you,” Nathan held out his hand. 

“Show me how?” Duke asked, crossing his arms as he leaned against the counter. Just because he didn’t see the handcuffs didn’t mean they weren’t there and he wasn’t about to reach out and give him an opportunity. 

“My trouble got…changed,” Nathan told him. “My touch can share memories now.” 

“So you’re not numb anymore?” Duke asked. 

“No, I am. I still have that part. Just something was added to it,” Nathan told him. “So will you let me show you?” 

Duke considered for a minute before shrugging. If he was about to be arrested, he doubted he would be able to stop it anyway, so he reached for Nathan’s hand only for his eyes to widen as a memory started playing in his mind. Outside some kind of biker bar, Nathan with a beard and then they were hugging. Apparently Nathan had thought he was dead. It made way for another one, both of them in deep sea pressure suits and Duke carrying Nathan who clearly had a busted line. The next one was them fighting side by side against some kind of freaky ass monster. Them handcuffed together outside of some cabin and Nathan trying to talk Duke out of some kind of babble trouble. Then came some kind of memories that he wasn’t a part of. Nathan was arguing with someone and it took Duke a second to recognize him without the hair. He was telling Dwight that Duke was still in there somewhere and that they weren’t giving up on him. Then he was telling someone else the same thing and that’s where it ended. “I was still in where? What happened to me?” Duke asked worriedly. 

Nathan knew that Duke wouldn’t appreciate being coddled. That he would want to know it all. And that he would need to know that he died anyway so knowing why would help. “That’s…complicated. See, it wasn’t just my trouble that was changed. A lot of people’s were. Including yours. Any trouble that was ever taken by a Crocker lived in you. Plus you were growing new troubles inside you.”

“Oh god,” Duke breathed out, downing the rest of his glass and putting the bottle on the table to refill before he plopped down and Nathan sat across from him. “What…how…”

“There was a…monster…mostly. He changed a bit there at the end which was how I got back here, but that’s beside the point. Basically, he took you over and used you to collect troubles from people to give to him and get more power,” Nathan tried to explain. 

“Show me,” Duke said firmly, reaching out his hand. “I need to see.” 

“I wasn’t there for a lot of what it actually did, but…I can show you what he turned you into,” Nathan said knowing that Duke would accept nothing less and took his hand. 

Nathan started the memory when he walked into the room to talk to him. “So, who am I talking to right now? Duke?

“Do I not look like Duke Crocker?” the thing asked, making the Duke watching the memory shudder. Just the voice was enough to give him the creeps. 

“The one I grew up with?” Nathan asked. 

“Now, why would you say that?” the thing asked amusedly. Duke refused to even think of it as him. 

“Your eyes. They've gone back to normal. So, whatever Croatoan did to you, it's wearing off,” Nathan wanted to believe. 

Duke watched the memory as his body looked down and then looked back up with completely black eyes and said, “Boo,” and he felt the bile rising in his throat. “Nothing is wearing off,” the thing continued. “This is what I am. I am the person who took Audrey Parker.”

“No!” the real world Duke snapped, snatching his hand away from Nathan. “I would /never/ hurt Audrey. No matter what took me over. Ever.” 

“I know,” Nathan said earnestly. “And you didn’t there either. You didn’t hurt her. You just took her.” 

Duke hesitated for a second before taking a deep breath and putting his hand back in Nathan’s. He needed to see the rest. 

“No. You are the guy who didn't just kill me when he had the chance. Because you remembered who you really are. You remember Audrey, too?” the Nathan in the memory asked.

“I do. Mmm...” the thing said and Duke wanted to punch the hell out of him for that damn leer. Like she was a piece of meat. He couldn’t believe that Nathan didn’t. 

“I know how much you really care about her. How much she means to you,” Nathan told him and the watching Duke wondered what he meant. What the hell had happened between him and Audrey in the future and what Nathan knew. 

“Shouldn't you be more concerned with how she feels about me? We both know that sometimes Audrey likes the bad boys. And now that I have found my true self, well...we may go all the way this time.” That answered part of Duke’s question. Apparently they’d never had anything and if he read the start of that statement right, she was probably with Nathan. 

“Well, I'm glad you brought that up. What happened between you two in Colorado...” The watching Duke winced. So he knew about that. “…it meant something. I know it did for her. I'm sure it did for you, too. I want you to remember that. What that fell like. Remember that moment. Remember how much Audrey means to you because, right now, she needs you. Please. Tell me where she is.”

The watching Duke was confused about the way Nathan was talking about Colorado. If he and Audrey were really together then that would be the last thing he would want to think about. And saying that it had meant something to Audrey…obviously it hadn’t. Nathan must just be trying anything and everything to get through to the real him. True or not. That had to be it. His attention was brought back to the memory as the thing masquerading as him laughed. “You are pathetic. Did you really think that reminding me of kissing that dead fish would change anything? This isn't some magical spell that you can break with the power of love. This... is what I am.”

“I don't believe that,” Nathan said seriously, and the watching Duke completely agreed with him. 

“It doesn't matter what you believe. You've already lost. She's gone,” it said. 

“We'll find her,” Nathan said stubbornly. 

“Good luck. Croatoan was hiding inside of Dave,” it said and the watching Duke narrowed his eyes and tilted his head. Something changed there. “You remember Dave. Old and bald and knew every hidden comer of Haven.” That was the real him pretending. It was a hint.


	4. Chapter 4

The next memory started right on the heels of that one. “We'll stay here as long as it takes because I know that you're still in there, Duke. Croatoan's inside your head, controlling you. You can force him out.” Duke was surprised to see how hard Nathan was still fighting for him. He had the hint he needed to find Audrey. What did it matter anymore?

“You. are wrong,” the thing told Nathan. 

“Since when do you let someone tell you what to do? Don't let him control you. This isn't you,” Nathan said firmly. 

The watching Duke could only hope that had gotten through to him. It should have worked. If there was any part of him still in there, it should have worked. But the thing just spit in Nathan’s face. “Wrong again. For the first time in my life, I know exactly who I am. This is what I was always meant to be.” The watching Duke felt the bile rising in his throat again. If that was what he was meant to be then he wanted no part of it. Just as he was about to lose hope, the thing doubled over and he could see himself again, but not quite. Something was still off. He just couldn’t tell what. “Please, Nathan...help me.”

“You're fighting him,” Nathan said as he reached across the table to pull Duke closer. “What can I do? How do I help?” he asked moving a hand to Duke’s neck like he was trying to hold him there physically by force of will alone. 

“I don't know,” he croaked out and that’s when the watching Duke realized that Nathan was being played. The real him would have had /some/ ideas. Even if they were bad ones. He wouldn’t have just thrown in the towel with that kind of answer. 

“You can do this. You can beat him, Duke. I know you can. Come on,” Nathan coaxed just in time for the eyes to turn back to black and him to smirk. 

There was a cut as the next memory came up as Duke watched himself walk through walls. Apparently some trouble he’d picked up at some point. Or one that he’d created. “This is your big moment. Will you defend that with your life?” There was a pause as he watched himself kill someone completely dismissively. 

“How did you get free?” Nathan asked.

“Well, now, why go around something when you can just bust right through it?” Duke watched himself toy with Nathan disgustedly. “So easily fooled.”

“Croatoan planned this...wanted you to get caught. You faked this all just so you could get your hands on this,” the Nathan in the memory realized. 

“That's right. Exactly,” the thing said smugly and Duke lost all hope that he would ever come back from this. “It's like a menu of Troubles. Now we can just pick and choose our favorites...and then drink them up. We will be unstoppable.” Duke found himself hoping that someone had just killed this thing to stop it. Screw trying to get him back. It needed to die, but it was still talking, leaning down into Nathan’s face now. “It's ironic. All of the times that you asked me to kill for you. Look what I have become. What you turned me into. You wanted a Crocker? Well, here I am.” 

“Remember this...It isn't you,” Nathan groaned out before the thing in Duke strolled out with the book. 

Duke pulled his hand away. He had too many questions to see another memory right now. “You asked me to kill for you? After everything?” he asked with revulsion. “How many times?” 

Nathan winced, having forgotten about that part. “Including the one a couple months ago with the organ stealing trouble, three times,” he admitted. “All of them when there was no other option.” 

Duke relaxed a fraction. Three times in over two years wasn’t as bad as he’d feared and if there really hadn’t been another choice…the way that thing had talked he was expecting more like a dozen, at least. “In case you were wondering, it was the real me when he gave you the hint about Dave and the thing was just playing you when it pretended to be me.” 

“I figured on both counts,” Nathan nodded. 

“So what happened? Please tell me someone put that thing down?” Duke asked hopefully. 

“Sort of,” Nathan shrugged, holding out his hand again. 

Duke hesitated before taking it. How much worse could it get, after all? He saw himself facing off against Audrey and Nathan with an old lady and the artist chick in the background. “Oh, is it your turn now? You're going to tell me how much I mean to you? How we're family?” the thing sneered at Audrey when she stepped into his path.

“No,” Audrey said simply and the watching Duke felt his heart break. She wasn’t even going to try?

“No?” Duke asked surprised. “Hundreds and hundreds of your little speeches..."Trouble whispering" all of your little lambs. You must have something special in your bag of trick for me.” 

“I'm not going to tell you what you already know, that what you're doing is wrong. I'm not going to beg for our lives, Duke.” The watching Duke could see the determination in her eyes and started to get a spark of hope that maybe she did actually care. He desperately wanted to see what happened here. He /needed/ to see it. 

“Don't be so melodramatic. Croatoan wants you alive. Nathan too, for now. As long as the old lady doesn't get in my way, I will take the artiste and go,” the thing assured her.

“I will not let you kill Vickie,” Audrey said firmly.

“Oh, I see. You'll only let me kill when it serves your purpose. Well, I don't work for you anymore,” it sneered.

“You never worked for us,” Nathan chimed in. 

“No, Duke's right,” she told Nathan before turning back to Duke. “We used you. I... used you. When we found out about the Crocker family curse, about what it could do, I used that as a tool to stop the Troubles because that's what I was sent here to do. But I didn't think about how much it was going to hurt you, how killing all of those people, how...how it would change you,” she said gently. If it hadn’t been a memory, Duke might have pointed out that she should have. She knew him better than anyone. She should have known how much every life he took would tear him apart. Even if it was only three of them. 

“It didn't change anything. This was always meant to be,” the thing said, making Duke feel sick again. 

“I don't think it was. I think you were fighting your destiny. And if left alone, maybe you might have even won. But I didn't know that. And I came along, and I sent you on that path. And for that, I am truly sorry,” she said sadly. Duke could tell how much she meant it and that helped. “I know how it feels, Duke, to be fighting to be the person that you want to be when everyone is telling you to be someone else. Croatoan thinks that I'm his daughter. I-I look like her. I sound like her. Do you know how easy it would be to just say, ‘Sure, it's good to see you, Dad,’ and stop being scared?” I'm so tired,” she started walking slowly towards him, and Duke noticed his hand flexing around the knife. He was fighting it. For real this time. “I'm so tired of fighting my destiny. But I can't give up. Because when I look in the mirror, I only see me. I see the person that I truly am. The only person I want to be. So tell me, Duke, when you look in the mirror, when no one else is around, who are you?” 

Duke could see himself finally fighting through. Audrey was fighting for him and he knew that made all the difference. He watched as he reached up his hand and placed it to her cheek, leaning closer and the knife fell from his hand. “I'm Duke Crocker…And I just want to go back to being a pirate,” he said almost desperately and the watching Duke had to fight the urge to cheer as Audrey jumped into his arms hugging him tightly. It was a long moment before he let go and he didn’t miss the look between him and Nathan before he said a nervous, “Hey.”


	5. Chapter 5

“Welcome back, kiddo,” the old lady was the first to say and Duke knew he recognized her from somewhere but couldn’t place her. 

“Glad to be back,” Duke said relieved.

“I knew you could beat him,” Nathan said proudly.

“Yeah, not soon enough,” Duke scoffed and the watching version couldn’t help but agree. 

“We have to make sure that Croatoan doesn't find out about you. Is there any way that you can use your phasing Trouble to get out of town?” Audrey asked worriedly and the watching Duke rolled his eyes. Like that was ever going to happen. 

Sure enough. “I'm not going anywhere,” Duke said resolutely. “I'm going to kill Croatoan.”

“No. No way. You're not going anywhere near him,” Nathan said firmly.

“Nathan, the things that he made me do, the people I killed, the friends I hurt, what I did to the both of you...He's trying to split you up. He knows you are stronger together. Please, you have to let me help. I need to make things right,” he begged. 

“You will. I promise. But we have to be careful. If Croatoan gets a hold of one of your Troubles...” Audrey cut off as Duke doubled over in pain. She managed to keep him on his feet, but he stumbled away from her. “What? What's wrong?” she asked fearfully.

“He knows,” Duke croaked. “Croatoan knows. He's taking them. I can't stop him,” he started to panic. All the watching Duke could think was ‘oh shit’. 

“What can we do?” Audrey asked desperately, watching as the troubles were pulled from Duke and flying from the room. “There's got to be something that we can do.”

“There is,” Duke said hauntedly as he slowly turned around and looked Nathan in the eyes. “You have to kill me.” The watching Duke knew now what Nathan meant when he said ‘sort of’. “You have to kill me. Now. Before he takes any more!”

“There has to be another way,” Nathan shook his head calmly.

“There isn't!” Duke snapped. 

“Duke...” Audrey started before Duke cut her off.

“Whenever a Crocker has died, the Troubles stayed with him! If I'm dead, Croatoan has no way of collecting them,” he tried to reason 

“No…Duke. I can't,” Nathan said firmly and the watching Duke couldn’t believe that he was arguing against it so much. He would think that Nathan would be jumping at the chance. Especially if he knew how Duke felt about Audrey. 

“Yes, you can, Nathan. You can to save Haven, to save Audrey,” Duke said earnestly. 

“No. No, not like this,” Audrey argued desperately. 

Duke could see himself starting to getting desperate. “I'd do it myself, I'd go to the roof and jump. But if I break open and bleed out all my Troubles, then I died for nothing! Croatoan took everything from me. I have to take something back. I have to choose my destiny,” he looked deep into Audrey’s eyes, begging her to understand. If anyone could understand it would be her. “I have to show Croatoan that Duke Crocker's nobody's bitch,” he said more to Nathan. “So please. Please,” he said softly, but no one moved. “Come on, please. Please!” he snapped. When it was clear that Nathan wasn’t going to do it, he turned to his next best option. “Gloria?”

“No, I'm sorry, Duke,” she said tearfully.

Duke spun as another trouble flew from his eye. “Do you see that? Who knows which one that was! You have no idea the horrible Troubles that I've taken inside of me! And if I let Croatoan get them, then he wins!” he yelled frantically before forcing himself to calm down. “That's not my destiny,” he said earnestly. “That's not me.”

“No,” Audrey whispered as her tears started to fall and the watching Duke could see that she was convinced and watched himself turn to Nathan next. There was no version of him that would ever ask Audrey to do it. 

“Nathan, please. I can't do it myself. There's no time,” he begged, tears coming to his own eyes as well.

“I know. Everything's gonna be all right,” Nathan promised, feeling his heart break.

When Duke spun around as another trouble flew from him, Nathan hesitated for a second and Audrey breathed out, “Nathan…” Duke wondered if she was going to tell him to do it or not to do it, but before he could find out, Nathan acted. One of his arms went around Duke’s throat while his other hand covered his friend’s mouth and nose. Duke watched as he instinctively struggled for a moment at first, but quickly quashed the reaction and forced himself to relax and let it happen.

Audrey let out a gasping sob before she rushed over. “Hey. Duke, it's gonna be okay, all right?” she said taking his hand in hers. “We love you.”

“You are the bravest man I ever met, Duke Crocker, you always have been. So much we've done together. So much we never could've done without you. I owe you so much.I will spend the rest of my life trying to repay that debt.” Those words meant so much to Duke. Both versions of him and he finally really believed that he and Nathan were like brothers. Only a brother would have done that for him. 

When Nathan pulled his hand away he said nervously, “Duke…I…”

“Thank you,” Duke cut him off. He didn’t want to hear apologies or justifications. He didn’t need them. Anything that could be said had been said and Nathan had done him the best favor he could have asked for. “But this time around, don’t make me beg okay?” he tried to lighten the mood with a joke. 

“That’s not gonna happen this time around,” Nathan said firmly. “I know how to prevent it all.”

“Hang on,” Duke realized, having not picked up on it with everything else in the memory. “You said that was two years in the future and…Audrey was still there. That means…we found a way to prevent this hunter thing?” 

“Yes and no,” Nathan winced. “She’s supposed to leave to take the troubles away. That’s how it works. If she doesn’t leave then the troubles stay. Last time, I stopped her from going which caused the meteor storm to rain down on Haven, killing hundreds. The troubles escalated, mutated, horrible monsters were released, the whole town was all but destroyed…”

“So that’s it? We just let it happen? Let her leave?” Duke asked heartbrokenly. He knew there wasn’t a choice though. Hers was the only choice that would matter and given all that her choice wasn’t even in question. 

“No. This time I’m going in her place,” Nathan told him. “There was an accident, just before I came back that gave me the ability to power the barn too, and by sending me back in time, it replaced her with me in the barn’s systems which means it has to be me from now on.” 

“Barn?” Duke asked confused and got that whole story. “So you’re leaving then? In…two weeks?” Duke had to do the quick math, having tried not to count down the days. When Nathan nodded, Duke asked incredulously, “And you came here? Shouldn’t you be going to your girlfriend? Assuming I picked up on that right.”

“Yes, I came here. She’s not my girlfriend in this time and she never should have been,” Nathan told him finally getting to the main purpose of his visit. 

“What do you mean? Clearly you two love each other,” Duke pointed out. 

“We do. But not as much as she loves you,” Nathan told him. When Duke just scoffed, Nathan held out his hand. “Let me show you what happened after you died.” 

Duke narrowed his eyes, wondering if this was some kind of trick, but took his hand anyway and found himself watching Audrey cry over his body. He spared a glance for Nathan on the floor, trying not to fall apart before turning back to her as her words started to fall brokenly from her lips. “God, Duke. I-I’m so sorry. Th-this is all my fault. I…I took your strength for granted. I thought you would always be strong enough because you’re the strongest person I’ve ever known. I…I should have told you that. I should have told you so much. I…I should never have let you die without knowing what you meant to me.” She laid her head on his still chest as she cried. “I love you, Duke. So much. I know you never felt the same, but…but it was always you for me. No matter how much I love Nathan, it could never compare to how much I love you, so…wherever you are…know that you are /so/ loved. And I will never stop loving you. Or missing you. But I’ll try to have a good life anyway. Because I know that’s what you would have wanted for me. Goodbye, Duke. I’ll never forget you.” The last was said in a whisper as she fell to her knees and the memory ended, leaving a gobsmacked Duke sitting there gaping at Nathan as he tried to wrap his head around that.


	6. Chapter 6

Duke couldn’t remember the last time he’d been thrown for so much of a loop. If he /ever/ had been. “But…Colorado…” Duke furrowed his brow in confusion as he remembered that night and tried to make it fit this new knowledge, not even realizing that his hand was still in Nathan’s. Unless she just didn’t love him yet which was a possibility. Or maybe that last memory was faked somehow, or something was misunderstood. Maybe she didn’t mean that she loved him romantically. The memory was from Nathan’s point of view, so he only got Nathan’s feelings. Not hers. The heartache, both from her words and from having to kill the guy he loved like a brother, which was a whole other can of worms that Duke couldn’t even process at the moment. 

Nathan pulled the memory of Colorado from Duke’s point of view from his mind as he remembered it and was once again bowled over by the emotions. The love and lust was the same but even stronger than that was the bone-deep fear that overshadowed it all and Nathan couldn’t quite figure out why, but he knew that if there was any chance of giving Audrey her happiness then he would have to get Duke past it somehow. That required a new strategy. Possibly. Maybe just showing him Audrey’s view of that night would help, but he doubted it. “Yeah, Colorado. Let me show you that night from her point of view.” 

“You have…” was as far as Duke got before the memory was washing over him. Nathan had started it from him telling her, “You didn't waste anything. You know, you...you solved the Colorado Kid mystery. And you can beat.../we/ can beat this Hunter thing.” 

“Come on, Duke,” she rolled her eyes with a harsh laugh. “Now I have to beat a Hunter thing? No, no, I-I got what, uh, 20 days left? No, I just...” she sighed and deflated, going to sit next to him. “I want to live my life,” she all but begged and Duke could feel the weariness from her. 

“Okay,” Duke agreed sadly. “However you want to do it, you know? You want to...help the Troubled, or you just want to live your life, I'm in.” If Duke had been standing he would have staggered at the feelings he got from her as she lost herself in his eyes. 

“You...you are an amazing friend,” she said, and Duke could feel the pang of sadness at the word ‘friend’. Almost like she was trying to remind herself of that. 

“I'm just saying, you have choices,” Duke heard himself say as he looked away, but she just drew his attention right back. 

“No, no, no, no, no, it's more than that. You're here. You... you just left everything, and you got on a plane, and you came here to Colorado with me.” He could feel how much she /needed/ him to recognize that, but he still didn’t see the big deal. 

“Audrey, I'd do anything you need me to,” he assured her. “Hunt down your past, Fight your future.” 

He could feel her fighting her feelings as hard as she could, which just proved to him that they could never work. That no matter her feelings, she still didn’t actually want him. “The past is gone. And the future…” she closed her eyes, “thank God, it is not here yet. All we have is...” And then she was kissing him and Duke was pretty sure that he actually whimpered as everything kicked into overdrive. Part of him wanted to stop this. It was too much. Too intense. But he /had/ to see what happened next. He had to see why, but he didn’t get any answers. She just suddenly felt a wash of something…disappointment maybe? And then she was moving away. He was pretty sure he wasn’t that bad of a kisser, but what could have caused it. He could feel her desire and longing to go back even as she told him, “Uh...20 days, that's...that's not long enough for me to fix our friendship if I screw this up. So...” When she paused he could tell that she wanted something, for him to say something probably, but he didn’t know what and then it was definitely disappointment and even rejection she felt when she finished with, “I’m gonna get some air.” 

Duke expected the memory to end there, but it didn’t and the few tears that she wiped away as she wrapped her arms around herself and leaned against the wall made his heart clench painfully. He snatched his hand away from Nathan and got up, moving to the counter that he had to lean over to hold him up. “I…I need to…to process and…I just…”

“Yeah, okay,” Nathan said gently. He could imagine that. He knew that he’d thrown a lot at Duke pretty quickly and wasn’t surprised that he couldn’t take any more right now. He’d give him some time and if he didn’t fix things himself in a couple days he’d come back for another go. He wished that he could give him longer, but he only had two weeks. “I’ll talk to you later?” 

“Don’t…don’t tell Audrey…um…” 

“I won’t say anything to her yet,” Nathan promised. He would give Duke a chance first. And make at least one more attempt himself before going there. When Duke just nodded, Nathan headed out. 

Once Nathan was gone, Duke gave up on the idea of a glass and just turned up the bottle of bourbon as he plopped onto the couch. He replayed that last memory from Colorado over and over in his head, immersing himself in her point of view, her feelings, trying to make sense of things, but it didn’t work. So she loved him. That didn’t change anything. She loved Nathan too apparently. And Nathan…actually cared. That was throwing him for a loop too. Since when did /anyone/ care about him at all and then to have this thrown at him. 

He pushed aside the Audrey mess for now to deal with something else. Something a little less intense. At least he could stop looking over his shoulder for the man with the guard tattoo. He knew what Vanessa had seen now. It was Nathan. Some part of him had known that ever since he’d shown up with the tattoo, but he never would have imagined the circumstances. He meant it when he’d thanked Nathan. In that circumstance, it was the best thing he could have done for him. He was glad that he’d died still fighting his destiny. That he’d died free. He’d chosen his own destiny in the end. Getting Nathan’s emotions too he could have done without. 

At least he knew that Nathan truly meant every word he’d said at the end there. Nathan’s desperation to get him back when that /thing/ took him over was more than a little surprising too. He would have expected to be written off. Especially with the fact that he was killing people. He didn’t know how to deal with that. He’d never been able to count on anyone before, but now he could apparently count on Nathan. But then in two weeks Nathan would be gone forever which left him back at square one. He quickly pushed that away as unimportant. It wasn’t like he ever would have let himself count on Nathan anyway. It wasn’t his style. He took care of himself. It was who he was and he wasn’t about to change that. His mind turned in circles until he realized that the bottle was gone, but he didn’t have the strength to get up and get another one and it wasn’t long before he passed out right there on the couch anyway.

Nathan had just left the Cape Rouge and headed to the Gull for an early dinner. He was about halfway through when someone else slid into the seat across from him and he immediately recognized Agent Howard. “It’s you,” the fake fed said with narrowed eyes. 

“What’s me?” Nathan asked confused. 

“You’re the one that has the barn acting strange,” he told him watching for any sign of understanding that statement. 

“Oh. That. I hadn’t realized you’d be able to tell,” Nathan shrugged. 

“So you know what it is and what’s causing it?” Howard asked suspiciously.

“Yeah. I’m taking Audrey’s place,” Nathan said simply. 

“Explain,” Howard ordered impatiently. 

“I came back in time. Last time around the barn was destroyed two weeks from now, everything went to hell, William got out and then getting rid of him let Croatoan out and the entire world was on the verge of destruction when the void invaded, but we had made a new barn which dropped me back here to fix it all, but it meant that I had to be connected to the barn in Audrey’s place so I’ll be the one going from now on,” Nathan gave him the entire info dump as bluntly as he could since he was so rude about it.

Howard sighed heavily and said annoyedly, “You realize this means recalibrating /everything/ in the personality center?” 

“I would appreciate that. I’d rather stay a man if it’s all the same to you,” Nathan joked, but it fell flat as his jokes usually did. 

Howard huffed and gave him a glare. “I will assume that you know where and when to be. And you had better be on time,” he said with irritation as he got up and walked away.


	7. Chapter 7

No sooner than Howard walked away, Audrey was sitting down. “Was that Agent Howard I just saw?” 

“Yeah. It was,” Nathan told her, suddenly trying to think of how much of what he could tell her given Duke’s request and how that would change his plans. 

“What did he want?” she asked worriedly, knowing it would be too late to catch up to him herself. She had a thousand questions for him, but hopefully Nathan had thought to ask at least some of them. 

“Right, that’s a conversation for a more private location. Let me just get the check and then we can go talk,” Nathan told her. 

That just made Audrey even more nervous and she waited very impatiently for him to get the check and pay for his meal before all but dragging him upstairs. “Okay, talk.”

“First things first, I’m from the future,” he told her. 

“Oh crap. First the past and now this? Was it Stuart Mosely again? We should go find him…”

“Audrey, stop,” he said with a chuckle. “It wasn’t Stuart and I’m not going back. This was an intentional one-way trip.” 

“But…Nathan, we can’t mess with the timeline,” she tried to reason with him. 

“Too late,” he said unapologetically. “And in this case…very necessary. Unless you want to see this entire world swallowed up by the void.” 

“Do what?” Audrey’s jaw dropped and her eyes went wide. 

“It’s a long story,” Nathan warned her. 

“I don’t have anything better to do tonight,” she told him. It wasn’t like she would even be able to /sleep/ after that. 

“I guess I should start with the fact that I know what the hunter thing is that’s coming and you don’t have to disappear anymore,” Nathan told her. 

“What? How? Why?” Audrey asked, suddenly even more interested. 

“Basically there’s this thing…we call it a barn, but it’s really more like an interdimensional transportation thing. I don’t really understand how it works, but there’s a twenty-seven year cycle. It deposits you on Earth, you fight the troubles for a year and a half to recharge for the next cycle and then it picks you up and takes the troubles away with it,” Nathan explained. 

“But if I don’t go…then the troubles stay…” Audrey realized.

“Except you’re not connected to the barn anymore. The only way it could bring me back in time was to connect to me instead. Which means I’ll be the one going,” he told her. 

“Nathan, no. You can’t…I can’t just…let you take my place like that,” Audrey said horrified. 

“It’s too late,” Nathan told her. “It’s already done. And don’t think of it like a sacrifice. Think of it like atonement.”

“Atonement for what?” Audrey asked confused. 

“For letting my selfishness almost destroy the entire world,” Nathan told her. 

“What do you…” Audrey trailed off, wondering if he was exaggerating or taking on undeserved guilt. 

“Here, I can show you,” he told her, holding out his hand. 

“Show me?”

“My trouble was modified for this. It’ll go away for good once I’m in the barn, but it’s helpful enough for now. I can share memories with skin contact.”

“Okay…” Audrey said with a furrowed brow as she put her hand in his. 

She watched as they went to the barn, learned that Nathan was James’ father and that he couldn’t leave the barn, watched the fight with Arla Cogan, and then they were outside the barn and she was saying goodbye. She saw him refusing to let her go, regardless of the consequences, and refusing to listen to anything anyone else said on the matter. She watched herself take his gun and give it to Duke, making him promise not to let Nathan stop her and saw him try and fail. She watched Nathan shoot and kill an unarmed man and destroy the entire barn and the memory stopped just as Duke dove in after her. 

She pulled her hand away with a gasp and looked at him like she’d never seen him before. “James…”

“Died with the barn,” Nathan said with a grimace of pain. 

Audrey took a few deep breaths to try and process all that. The fact that Duke respected her decision, no matter how much it clearly hurt him didn’t surprise her at all. The fact that Nathan didn’t was particularly surprising, but she would never have imagined how far he would go. She wondered if the fact that she kissed him had anything to do with it. She could feel his desperation and even his love for her, but that didn’t excuse what he’d done at all. He clearly intended to destroy the barn, with their son inside, and doom the entire town to the troubles. “That’s…I…”

“So you see. I’m not some hero trying to make a grand sacrifice. I’m the villain trying to fix my mistakes.” This was a big part of his plan. She had to recognize his faults, learn that she couldn’t count on him. There had to be no question in her mind which man was best for her. He hoped that she wouldn’t notice the skip he’d put in there when Duke had admitted that he was in love with her. He’d made a promise to Duke that he wasn’t intending to break so he had to cut that part out. 

“So…Duke and I died too?” she asked. 

“No. You both made it out of the wreckage about six months later, but Haven had already gone to hell when the troubles didn’t disappear. You, me, and Duke…we tried to keep things together as much as we could, but…but things just kept getting worse. There’s a whole lot of crap and a long story, but I ended up releasing a monster from a place called the void. At least he started out as a monster, but…he saw the light in the end. By then it was too late though. The void was already starting to swallow this world. He helped me come back to fix it though. He wanted to fix his mistakes too.”

“How did we get through to him?” Audrey had to ask. “If he was really a monster…”

“He wasn’t really. I mean…it’s complicated,” Nathan tried to think how to explain it before deciding it would be easiest to show her. “Here, I promised to show you some of his memories anyway.”

“You did? Why me?” she asked confused. 

“Because…well…he’s your father,” he told her, unable to really get around that part. 

“My…father,” Audrey sucked in a sharp breath. Her father was a monster. 

“Like I said, it’s complicated. Let me show you?” Nathan held out his hand again and she took it, still in shock. 

Audrey watched through a few memories of who was apparently her as a little girl before she was diagnosed with some kind of sickness that she’d never heard of. She felt his intense grief wash over him before the determination set in and then Nathan ended it. “He didn’t give me the memories of what happened after that, but I don’t think you want them anyway. The information should be enough. See, he was a scientist and he started experimenting. Looking for any way to cure you. He succeeded, but his experiments had gone too far…and then he didn’t stop. He was banished to the void where he could barely survive and that’s what turned him into a monster. He lived there for more than five-hundred years before he was let loose and all he could think of was getting you back. By any means necessary. Even if it meant destroying this whole world to take you away.”

“And that justifies it?” she asked disgustedly, seeing the parallels between that and what Nathan had done. Keeping her by any means necessary. 

“No. It doesn’t,” Nathan told her, knowing that she’d figured out how they were the same. “But he did come to his senses after that.” He gripped her hand again and showed her the final conversation. From the time that he woke up after being hit with the Aether spear. 

Audrey could feel his remorse at what he’d done and the pain he caused her. She could feel his desire to make up for it in any way he could. She could tell that Nathan skipped parts of the conversation and was more than a little annoyed that they were going to lie to her like that. The memory ended when she agreed to go and she asked, “So you didn’t tell me what was really happening? You lied to me and hid it? And copied my memories without my permission on top of it?” 

“Yes,” Nathan admitted freely, knowing that he was killing any feeling that she ever had for him with that admission and knowing that it was necessary. No matter how much it hurt. 

“And you’re still hiding things from me,” she pointed out. “I noticed the skips in the memory.”

“That’s different,” Nathan told her. “That’s because of a promise I made to someone else and I do plan to share it all soon.” 

“I’m going to hold you to that,” she said sternly. “But for now…I need some time to think.”

“Okay,” he nodded. “Feel free to take a few days off work if you want. As long as no more troubles come up.”

“You don’t know if they will?” she asked confused. 

“I know they will. I’m just not sure when. I’m pretty sure that it was at least a few days after the trip to the past before the next one came up though.” Audrey just nodded and Nathan got up to leave. He stopped at the door though and turned back. “Oh, and you should also know…I’m sorry…but Claire is gone,” he said sympathetically. He really didn’t want to throw any more at her tonight, but it dawned on him that she would probably try and call Claire to talk about all this so she needed to know. 

“What?” she asked horrified. “How? Why? Did…Did you kill her?” 

“No,” Nathan answered the last question quickly. “I killed the skinwalker posing as her. Claire has been dead for at least a week. The same skinwalker that was posing as Tommy. And Grady. And killing people with a bolt gun to harvest pieces of skin to make her own. I would have come back in time to save her, but they refused to send me back before the trip to the past so I couldn’t screw too much up.” 

“Smart,” Audrey muttered, before waving for him to go away. She really needed to be alone right now. She had too much to process. Starting with the fact that Nathan was the father of her son.


	8. Chapter 8

After his conversation with Audrey, Nathan went home, changed his bedding, and passed out. The few hours of sleep he’d gotten this morning weren’t nearly enough and it had been a very difficult day for him emotionally. He knew it needed to be done, but setting up the woman he loved with another man was still going to hurt. Not to mention the firsthand knowledge of how much they loved each other from both of their memories. He was doing the right thing though. He knew that. 

The next day he spent a quiet day at home trying to make a more solid plan for the next two weeks, including getting his affairs in order for his departure. Pretty much everything he had would be left to Audrey. He knew she didn’t need the house, but he doubted he would be able to get it sold in less than two weeks so he would have to let her do it. There had been a guy trying to buy his dad’s boat for months though, so that he could sell off quickly and put the money aside for her. He would also close out all his retirement accounts and investments, it would mean taking a pretty big penalty, but the more he could consolidate things to make things easier on her the better. He knew that her identity would only hold up for so long and getting a better one would take a lot of cash. Duke would be able to hook her up with the right people at least. He would also get everything moved over to one account and put it in her name. 

He got as much done as he could possibly do on a Sunday, using online banking to it’s fullest, but there was still a lot left to do. The next day when he went into the station, taking a minute to remember that he was the chief again, he got to work on the rest of it and was in and out all day. Thankfully, he’d remembered correctly about having a short break before the next trouble and Audrey had clearly taken him up on his offer to take some time off. He made an appointment the following Saturday with a lawyer to get what he couldn’t sell off signed over and kept just enough money to pay for that and get him through the next few weeks, but other than that…and selling the boat which also had an appointment next weekend, he got it all done by the end of the day. 

The next morning, he came in to find Audrey already there. One day off was apparently her limit. He was surprised that she had even taken that, but he had hit her with quite a lot all at once. It was just in time thought because it wasn’t long before a lost kid was led in and he remembered the next trouble. After a little thinking he decided to let it play out. No one had died and the only person seriously hurt was a kidnapper, so there was no point in messing up the timeline too much. Assuming that Duke showed up to bond with the kid at all of course. Who knew if Duke was still reeling over everything and for all Nathan knew he was avoiding Audrey now. He would just play it by ear. 

The girl had been in Audrey’s office for about half an hour when Duke showed up right on schedule to see if Audrey and Nathan wanted to grab some lunch when the kid was pointed out and he sat down to start joking with her. Nathan gave it a few minutes before he asked to talk to Audrey alone. He’d seen the look in her eyes at Duke’s handling of Ginger and this was as good a time as any to talk to her about the arrangements for once he was gone, including the fact that he was going to be leaving the chief position to her which he started with. 

“Nathan, I can’t be police chief. I’m an outsider here remember?” she pointed out. 

“Oh please,” he rolled his eyes. “You haven’t been an outsider for almost a year and honestly, who else is gonna do it. Stan?” 

Audrey snorted amusedly at that idea. “Okay, I see your point, but…”

“But nothing. You’re the highest ranking person in the station,” Nathan told her. 

“Okay, but I’m also the only detective since you moved up,” she reminded him. 

“So you’ll have to promote someone. Or hire someone,” Nathan shrugged. 

“I still have trouble remembering people’s names,” she said incredulously. 

“If you want, I’ll make a short list to leave you,” he offered. 

“Okay. Fine,” she sighed. “I’ll do it.” There was even more argument about him leaving her everything else, but he finally managed to convince her due to the fact that he had no one else to leave it to and since she’d come into this world with nothing it was only fair that she get what he had when he was leaving it. She had just finally agreed when Nathan’s phone rang. It was Duke. He’d lost Ginger. 

Everything else went exactly the way Nathan remembered, right down to Jordan being caught in a kidnapping attempt. He didn’t honestly remember the address that Ginger’s father was being held at so he did need her to compel Jordan to cough it up anyway. That was all he had her ask though. He knew the rest so he sent Ginger upstairs. They would need her one more time. 

Once she was gone, Nathan pulled the chair around to sit opposite Jordan. “I know everything, Jordan,” he told her. “And you don’t need her. Because Audrey isn’t going into the barn…”

“She has to!” Jordan cried. 

“No. She doesn’t. The barn isn’t her responsibility anymore. It’s mine,” Nathan explained. “And I /will/ be going.”

“What are you talking about?” Jordan asked confused. 

“I came back from the future to fix some serious mistakes that destroyed the whole town and almost the whole world. Doing so made the barn connection switch from her to me. I’m the one who has to go in the barn from now on,” he told her. 

“I don’t believe you,” Jordan scoffed. “You would do /anything/ to save her.”

“Yes, I would. Including take her place,” Nathan said. “You don’t have to take my word for it. You’re welcome to come along when the barn gets here and ask the controller yourself.” 

Jordan narrowed her eyes suspiciously before saying, “Only if she comes too.” 

Nathan looked back at Audrey who nodded. “I want to be sure just as much as you do and if it /is/ still me that needs to go, then I will,” she promised. 

“I have your word? Both of you?” she asked hesitantly. Once they both assured her, she told them, “If you’ll give me my phone, I’ll call ahead and tell them to let Ginger’s father go.” 

Nathan scrutinized her for a moment before nodding and holding it out. He didn’t let go when she grabbed it though. “I’m trusting you because you’re trusting us. Don’t make me regret it.” 

“I won’t if you won’t,” she replied taking the phone and making the call. They all went to get him together though, just in case. Once they were reunited, Duke offered to take them to a new safe house and Nathan just huffed at that. He’d wanted to talk to Duke about Audrey some more, but he guessed it could wait. 

Instead, Audrey was the one to corner him to talk more about the future. “Were we together there?” she asked bluntly. 

“Yes,” Nathan admitted. “But we shouldn’t have been,” he added cryptically. 

“Because of what you did?” she asked. “How did I even get over that?” 

“Honestly, I don’t know,” Nathan sighed. “I don’t really know that you did so much as it just got…buried under the pile of other awful crap coming at us.” 

“What memories of mine did you take to give me?” she asked. 

“Well I took some for me too,” Nathan told her, leaving out the ones he’d taken for Duke. She didn’t need to know that. 

“Show me how we got together?” she asked, holding out her hand. She had to understand how that could happen after what he did. 

Nathan sighed and put his hand in hers, showing her a series of memories, but just flashes of most of them so that she could understand that one. Coming out of the barn as Lexi, him trying to make her kill him to end the troubles, her pretending to stay Lexi to avoid it and then the fight they had when she tried to tell him they couldn’t be together but he didn’t listen and kissed her anyway. He ended it before the clothes started coming off though. 

Audrey took a moment to process the memory and could easily figure out what had happened. She’d turned him away but he came back so she decided to cling to him so she wouldn’t have to face all the awful alone. But she could feel her love for him in the memory. It wasn’t nearly as strong as she felt for…someone else, but it was there. Maybe her memories had just gotten scrambled in the barn. That had to be it. While she could see herself staying friends with him, maybe even best friends, loving him after what he did…it shouldn’t have been possible. She shook it off and changed the subject. “How much of this case did you remember?” 

“Most of it,” he said honestly. “But I didn’t remember exactly where they were holding her dad.” 

“So you just let the rest of it happen? Her getting kidnapped, mind controlling Duke, him getting hurt, all of it?” she asked incredulously. 

“I thought it was best to not interfere with the timeline more than necessary. Arla had to be gotten out of the way before the barn to keep you from being kidnapped and all that mess from going wrong with the switch and all, but everything else we should let play out as close as possible as long as no one gets killed,” he told her. Audrey couldn’t honestly argue with that, so she just let it go as they pulled up at the Gull to drop her off.


	9. Chapter 9

The next day, as soon as Nathan got off work, he headed for the Cape Rouge, calling for Duke as he went inside. “What’s up?” Duke asked curiously, leaning against the counter. 

“Have you talked to Audrey yet?” Nathan asked. 

“About what?” 

“You know about what. You and her,” Nathan rolled his eyes. 

“There’s no me and her /to/ talk about,” Duke shrugged. 

Nathan realized that he’d been right. Whatever Duke was so afraid of was keeping him from taking the leap even knowing how she felt. “But there could be,” he said pointedly. 

“Come on, Nate,” Duke scoffed. “How would that even work? She’s a cop and I’m just a crook.” 

“Okay, first, you’re not /just/ anything,” Nathan argued. “I admit that I was blinded by that side of you for a long time, but I can admit when I’m wrong, and I was wrong. You’re so much more than that too.”

Duke snorted derisively. “Even if I /became/ more than that in your future, it doesn’t change what I am now. And now that future won’t even happen so…” 

“You’ve always been more than that,” Nathan told him. “How many times have you jumped in to save the day now? Even before the troubles, there were hard lines that you wouldn’t cross.” He could see that Duke wasn’t convinced so he held out his hand. “Let me show you how she sees you.” 

“I don’t know,” Duke shifted uncomfortably. 

“Please?” Nathan asked, giving him that last little push and Duke put his hand in Nathan’s with a heavy sigh. Nathan made sure to keep it to memories prior to this point in the timeline given Duke’s concerns about not becoming the person he was in the future. He started with the memory of the morning after she was kidnapped when Duke was changing the locks. 

Duke was surprised about how on edge she’d been before he got there and how instantly she relaxed when he did. How safe she felt with him. It was definitely a new experience for him. He realized that showing her all the stuff she’d found at the grave about the hunter was her opening up to him. Letting him in. When they heard the footsteps, she felt a wave of fear, but instantly calmed as he got up to handle it, trusting him to do so, even though the only weapon he had was a rusty screwdriver. That trust was nothing compared to when Nathan suggested that he was the hunter and it was mixed with more frustration than he’d expected at Nathan for suggesting it. He felt her satisfaction when he defended their friendship, but the most prominent emotion through the whole thing was contentment. Enjoying having him around. 

The next memory was the night that Lady Justice was after him. He felt her annoyance at being woken up which was understandable, but she had still sat up with him, drinking wine and chatting and he was surprised how much that had meant to her. How understood she felt when they were talking about their destinies. Most importantly though was the fact that she had just been pretending to be asleep when he’d told her that the one good thing about the troubles was getting to meet her. The spike of love he felt from her when he said that actually made him sway a bit, even with the fear and insecurity mixed in. It was followed by the day he’d learned about his trouble. He was surprised to find that she had never once been afraid of him for even a second. Not when he was throwing Dwight overboard. Not when his eyes started glowing. Not even when they found the order for him to kill her. She trusted him completely and knew that there wasn’t a chance in hell of him following that order. 

The last memory Nathan showed him was of the day that he killed the man with the organ stealing trouble. He felt her heart break for him and the crushing guilt of even having to ask him to do it. He could tell that she’d never even considered it as her making the decision for him by not giving him time to decide himself and that just made the guilt even worse. She truly had been trying to protect him. He felt the stab of agony when he’d been so harsh with her, but could tell that she knew she deserved it. The memory cut forward to her finding out that everyone had been cured and her first thought was worry about him and she had raced straight to the Gull. She’d told him about them being okay to try and help him feel better about what he’d done and once he watched himself walk away from her without a word, he saw the tears leak from her eyes as she whispered into the empty restaurant, “Please be okay, Duke. Please don’t let me have broken you.” 

Duke had sat down across from Nathan about halfway through the third memory and once the last one ended, Nathan told him, “You see? You’re a lot more than ‘just a crook’ to her. She loves you. She trusts you. Depends on you. Feels safe with you.” 

“But she loves you too,” Duke pointed out. “She said so.”

“She told you that?” Nathan asked confused. That didn’t make sense. 

“No, she told /you/ that. When you were dead,” Duke sighed. 

“Oh. That time,” Nathan chuckled. “Let me show you that day from her point of view too.” 

Another memory washed over Duke and he could see the moment Audrey realized that they weren’t going to be able to bring him back. What he wasn’t expecting was the feelings of rejection that were still so strong when she looked at him and when she fell beside Nathan and told him that she loved him, he could feel the love she was talking about and it was just a pale shadow to what he’d felt from her for him and he got it. She was feeling hurt and rejected and latched onto the first person she could that might make her feel better, all of it exacerbated by her grief over his death. When the memory ended, Duke closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths before shaking his head. “It still doesn’t change anything. A cop and a criminal could never work.”

“What are you so afraid of?” Nathan asked bluntly, hoping that he could pull some memory from Duke that would answer that question even if he didn’t admit it and he was more than a little surprised by what he got. He’d asked her out and she’d said yes. Then she stood him up and despite the game face he’d put on, it had hurt far more than he would admit. That was followed by her dodging his calls and then avoiding him until she needed his help with a case and then asking too much of him, proving to his mind, that she wouldn’t accept his life as it was. 

“It’s not a matter of fear,” Duke lied, not realizing what all Nathan was getting. “It’s a matter of practicality. And I don’t understand why you’re pushing this so hard.”

“Because I love her almost as much as you do,” Nathan admitted. “And I want her to be happy.”

“And you think I can make her happy?” Duke scoffed. “Love isn’t everything, you know.” 

“But it’s the most important thing,” Nathan told him. “You /do/ make her happy, Duke. Yeah, it took her a while to get to know you at first, but once she did, everything changed. I just have a few more things to show you,” Nathan decided. Then he would need to take it to Audrey. She was the only one who could really reassure him now. 

Duke was about to say no. That he was done discussing this. That he couldn’t stand to have his heart ripped out and see the possibilities that he could never have anymore. He didn’t get a chance to though before a memory started playing in his head and he couldn’t bring himself to snatch his hand away as he watched her defend him vociferously to her boss at the FBI and it didn’t take him long to realize when this was. It was shortly after her birthday and only a few months after the date that she didn’t make. His mind contrasted that with the same event and Julia going off about him being lowlife trash and he realized that was the moment that he’d given up all hope of ever being with Audrey. That he’d let Julia’s words get to him, but here Audrey was…the same day and the same situation…defending him. And knowing him well enough to find his secret hatch. Could Nathan be right? That knowing him better changed things? 

Before he could decide there was another memory following it. One that confused him as he watched himself chase her down for forgetting to sign a rent check and her amusement and comfort with his teasing was quickly wiped away when he was hit by a car and the way she felt when he died nearly ripped him in two. It wasn’t until he felt her relief as she woke up again that he realized it had been during the groundhog day and then she was running down the stairs, clothes all askew from the way she just haphazardly pulled them on and she was throwing herself in his arms. He could feel her love for him…not as strongly as it was in Colorado, but much stronger than the slight stirrings that he felt when she was defending him on the boat. The last memory was short, but no less jarring. The way she felt when she met Evi and she introduced herself as his wife was intense. It was a combination between jealousy, hurt, insecurity, and grief and that really was the last straw for him and he jerked his hand away from Nathan. 

“Do you get it now?” Nathan asked him hopefully. 

“I…don’t know,” Duke sighed, putting his head in his hands. “This is…a lot to process. I don’t…I mean…”

“Okay,” Nathan nodded. “I get that. I’ll let you think about it.” 

When Nathan got up to leave, Duke looked up and said, “Nate?” He stopped and looked back. “I have to ask…in the future…I was dead. You could have had her all to yourself. She would have gotten over me. Why would you…”

“Same reason you would have,” Nathan smiled knowingly before continuing out the door. He could say all he wanted about coming back to save the world, but he…and Duke apparently…knew the truth. The real reason he came back was to save Audrey. And that was why he would never deserve her. Because he was still just as selfish as he had been the day he’d destroyed the barn. She was more important than the entire world. As long as she was free, alive, and happy…he didn’t care what else was destroyed.


	10. Chapter 10

Nathan hesitated a moment before heading for Audrey’s apartment once he left the Cape Rouge. He was relatively sure that Duke would come to his senses and go to her, but she needed to understand where he would be coming from. He wanted to ease the way as much as possible and he had promised her to share all the bits he was keeping from her before. He went up and knocked on the door and when she opened it, she looked confused at him. “Nathan? What’s wrong?” she asked as she opened the door to let him in. 

“I promised that I would show you what I held back before…if you still want to see,” he offered. 

“Yeah, definitely,” she nodded going to sit on the couch and when he sat down next to her, she held her hand out to him expectantly. 

Audrey immediately found herself back in the field where she’d initially tried to go into the barn. She heard the speech she remembered. “Listen…she is trying to help all these people. She is trying to help this town. And it is /her/ choice. It’s not yours. It’s not mine. And I hate it. But it’s still her choice.”

Then she heard the part that had been skipped before. “You’re in love with her too,” Nathan realized.

“Yeah,” Duke breathed out and the watching Audrey gasped. 

“Then how can you let her go?” Nathan yelled as the memory ended and the next one started. 

It also started in a place she was familiar with. “I was already planning to leave. To let this barn take me and let the two of you have your life. Free of the troubles,” Croatoan said with a sigh.

“That’s all well and good, but there would still be something missing. Something we might be able to give back to her,” Nathan suggested. She hadn’t heard that part and wondered what it was that he was going to give back to her. 

“What’s that?” Croatoan asked hopefully. There wasn’t much he wouldn’t do or give for his daughter right now.

“As much as she loves me, there is someone else…/was/ someone else that she loved more,” Nathan said sadly and Audrey started getting a bad feeling about that ‘was’ comment. “This barn has time travel capabilities like the other one right?”

Vince came out of the crystal at that to answer the question. He saw the redemption attempt by Croatoan and couldn’t help but wonder what Nathan’s idea was. Most importantly, Croatoan wouldn’t be able to answer that question. “It does, but such things aren’t to be taken lightly,” he told Nathan.

“I know. But if we could save the last barn…” Nathan said, hoping that Vince would see the value in it.

“To take you back in time would attune you to the barn. Both versions of it since this is the same controller crystal as the last,” Vince told him. “Your connection would replace Audrey’s and the barn would be coming for you instead of her.”

“Even better,” Nathan sighed happily.

“So you want to go back and then leave her?” Croatoan asked distastefully, having seen how much it hurt her when he’d left this time. “What happened to loving her?” This was another part that Audrey hadn’t seen before and she couldn’t help but wonder about the answer to that herself. What was Nathan getting at here. 

“I plan to give her who she really loves first,” Nathan told him before turning to Vince. “Can this one show memories like the last?”

Vince nodded and activated that feature causing a scene to show on the walls. Audrey was leaning over Duke’s body in the precinct as Nathan sat on the floor outside the door, knees hugged to his chest and his head buried in his arms. He had needed to get out of there and said he was taking a walk, but hadn’t been able to go far, so when Dwight and Gloria had gone to get the freezer truck, he heard everything Audrey said to Duke. When the watching Audrey saw herself standing beside Duke’s clearly dead body, she choked a sob and had to force herself to pay attention to the memory. 

“God, Duke,” Audrey sobbed. “I-I’m so sorry. Th-this is all my fault. I…I took your strength for granted. I thought you would always be strong enough because you’re the strongest person I’ve ever known. I…I should have told you that. I should have told you so much. I…I should never have let you die without knowing what you meant to me.” She laid her head on his still chest as she cried. “I love you, Duke. So much. I know you never felt the same, but…but it was always you for me. No matter how much I love Nathan, it could never compare to how much I love you, so…wherever you are…know that you are /so/ loved. And I will never stop loving you. Or missing you. But I’ll try to have a good life anyway. Because I know that’s what you would have wanted for me. Goodbye, Duke. I’ll never forget you.” The last was said in a whisper as she fell to her knees and the memory ended.

“So you see,” Nathan told Croatoan. “You completely destroyed the man she truly loved. In a far worse way than you ever did me. I want to give that back to her.”

“Why? She said that he doesn’t love her,” Croatoan pointed out.

“She was wrong,” Nathan told him.

“Even I know that,” Vince chimed in and Audrey couldn’t help but wonder if they were right. If Duke really did love her. He’d said that he did back before the barn, but even after all that time. After she’d apparently chosen Nathan, could he still?

“Duke loved her just as much as I do. Maybe even more. He sacrificed more for her than even she knows. He stepped aside because he thought she wanted me. We both did,” Nathan said sadly. 

As much as Audrey wanted to know what all he sacrificed for her that she didn’t know about, she had one more important question on her mind. “What happened to Duke? How did he die?” 

“That’s a pretty difficult memory,” Nathan warned her but saw the determination in her eyes. “Do you want it from your point of view or mine?” 

“Mine,” she told him without hesitation and the memory started to play, starting from her stepping in front of the black-eyed version of him and Audrey quickly pulled her hand back. “What is that? It’s sure as hell not Duke.”

“Croatoan took him over. Was controlling him. I tried to get through to him. To get him to fight. I tried everything, but I failed.”

“You don’t even like him,” Audrey pointed out, not sure how much she believed that. 

“I was an idiot the first time around. I let old grudges blind me to who he really was. By the time this happened, we were as good as brothers. Even when everyone else told me it was a lost cause, I refused to give up on him,” Nathan assured her. 

Audrey nodded and put her hand back in his and it picked back up from where it left off. When she saw herself decline to help him at first, she was taken aback, but once she started talking again, she breathed a sigh of relief. She should have known that there was no way she would ever turn her back on him. No matter what. She felt the tears filling her eyes as he came back and felt her heart break at the desperation in his voice when he said that he just wanted to go back to being a pirate. Just as she was starting to wonder how this led to him dying she got her answer and wanted to scream at them not to even think about it. Hearing his pleas though, the way he begged them to let him choose his own destiny and not to let Croatoan beat him, she got it. She knew that would be a fate far worse than death for Duke and didn’t blame Nathan a bit when he did it. She watched herself go over and wished that she could close her eyes and not watch. It was just too much on top of the double dose of agonizing grief. She couldn’t bring herself to stop the memory though and she was glad she didn’t as she heard Nathan’s last words to Duke. She jerked her hand away the second Duke stopped breathing and ran to the bathroom to throw up. 

Nathan waited patiently for her to come out and then said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t want…” he trailed of, not sure if he was apologizing for doing it or for showing her. 

“You didn’t have a choice,” she told him hollowly. “I would have done the same. No matter how badly it broke me to do it.”


	11. Chapter 11

Audrey took a few minutes to collect herself before asking her other question. “You told Vince and Croatoan that Duke had sacrificed more for me than I knew. What did you mean?” 

“There was nothing he wouldn’t have done for you. Then or now. You saw in the other memory how he just threw himself into the barn after you. He put his life on the line to protect you more times that I can remember. And even more telling for him is the number of times he unflinchingly put his life in your hands. He used himself as bait for an entire militia to buy me time to save you once. He endured the kind of pain that I can’t even describe to try and bring you back when your body was taken over by another personality. And I know how bad it was because I ended up getting switched into his body for that time and the pain literally crippled me.” 

“Show me,” Audrey demanded, reaching over to take his hand. 

“Audrey, it’s bad…”

“I don’t care,” she said firmly. She knew that he didn’t have the memories of Duke using himself as bait or any of that stuff, but she needed to see how bad the pain was. What he had endured for her. As much as she could. 

Nathan sighed, but did as she asked. She saw Duke in Nathan’s body trying to tell him to hold on. That he couldn’t release it yet and Nathan crumbling to the ground shaking in pain, and Audrey did her best not to scream as she felt it too. It only lasted for a minute though before the perspective switched and she could see them back in their own bodies and Duke was clearly struggling with it, but keeping himself together and promised to hold on until Nathan got back with Mara. “And he did?” Audrey asked as the memory ended. “How long did it take?” 

“Over an hour,” Nathan told her. “And he’d been like that for more than a day by that point already. It was our only chance to get you back though, so he dealt with it, and still managed to keep enough control to do what he needed to do. What I failed to do.” 

“That was…” Audrey took a deep shaky breath. She had known for a while that Duke was the strongest person she’d ever known, but that was beyond even what she could have imagined. 

“So…he loves me,” she realized. “But then why…” she cut herself off abruptly. 

“Let me show you what happened from his point of view,” Nathan told her, knowing what she was talking about. When she just nodded, he started the memory and she gasped when she saw them in the motel in Colorado. She hadn’t realized that Nathan knew about that. 

Audrey found herself basking in Duke’s love for her as she ranted and his spike of happiness when he found something he could help with and offered her some Cuban cigars. She felt his worry when she started talking about how she had been wasting her time and the overwhelming waves of love as the conversation turned more emotional. Then when she kissed him she felt the fireworks from him too followed by the crippling fear and that was when she realized what it was she’d been feeling from him. It wasn’t the hesitation because he didn’t want it. It was him being so terrified of it and as the memory ended she found herself wondering why. It clearly wasn’t fear of his feelings because he’d been fine when it had just been him loving her from a distance, but as soon as it got real, he freaked out. It didn’t make any sense. “Why was he so afraid?” she mused aloud, not sure if she intended Nathan to hear it or not. 

“I can show you?” he offered and Audrey nodded only for another memory to start playing. 

She felt his pure joy as she agreed to a date with him and then his crushing disappointment when she stood him up and she felt her own guilt starting to well up as it moved on to him frantically calling her the next day when he realized that something was wrong and her deny every call. It only took her a minute to realize that he had decided that he couldn’t count on her even to save his life. Then there was her asking him for help with the case where Vicki’s drawings were being used against her and that was where the worst of his insecurity started and when she tried to thank him and he told her that she asked too much of him, he was so resigned to it that it wasn’t hard to see what he was thinking. That he was imagining what a future with them would be like and writing it off. 

The next memory she wasn’t even in which confused her, but she watched anyway, knowing that Nathan wanted her to see it for a reason. “And just how did you meet these fine gentlemen?” Julia asked him and Audrey suddenly knew when this was. The day the boat was hijacked and they almost died. It still remained to be seen what it had to do with Duke’s fear about her though. 

“A friend introduced us,” Duke told Julia. “Said they liked to play poker.”

“Did he also say they liked to kidnap their opponents and drag them out into the open sea?” 

“I'm picking up on your sarcasm,” Duke said wryly and Audrey couldn’t help but smile at just how calmly he was taking it. A lot like she had really. “I didn't think this was gonna happen. I thought we'd play cards, I'd make a little money, and a good time would be had by all.”

“So why did this friend not tell you the truth about these guys?” Julia asked. 

“I understand the confusion. When I say friend...I don't actually mean friend,” Duke told her and Audrey snorted amusedly. Even she knew that. “I mean more like...business associate.”

“A trusted business associate?” Julia asked skeptically. 

“Trust is flexible in my line of work,” Duke said with a shrug. Another thing Audrey could have figured out easily. 

“Which is what, exactly, Duke... your line of work?” Ooh bad question to ask, Audrey winced. 

“Okay. Well...” Audrey wondered for a minute if Duke was actually going to give her a serious answer. “I buy things. I sell things. Sometimes I just deliver things.” And it was exactly the evasive one that Audrey would have expected. 

“Like boxes,” Julia said distastefully. 

“Like boxes,” Duke agreed. 

“What's in them?” Julia asked and Audrey winced again. Another bad question. 

“I don't know,” Duke told her honestly. “As far as I'm concerned, they're just boxes.”

“Yet you deliver them,” Julia asked with clear disgust and Audrey was starting to get why Nathan thought she should see this one. The one time that he was probably as close to honest about his work as he could get and this was what he got for it. Little did she know it was about to get worse. 

“Well, now, does FedEx know what's inside of every package they deliver?” Duke asked lightly. 

“No, they don't, but they don't keep arsenals or build escape hatches in their stores. And they ask what's in the packages they deliver,” Julia said judgmentally. 

“Which is why they can't do what I do. You're overreacting,” Duke tried to chill her out. 

“Maybe we should open…” 

“Don't do that,” Duke grabbed her arm and Audrey couldn’t help but be relieved. Was Julia /trying/ to get herself killed? Judging by the worry that Duke was feeling he was wondering the same thing. 

“Doesn't it bother you that there may be ugly things in your boxes?” she asked disbelievingly. 

“It's none of my business,” Duke said sternly. “And it's definitely none of yours.” Once it was clear that she wasn’t going to go snooping in the boxes again, Duke went to sit down, fiddling with his gun while Julia started pacing. 

“You really just gonna sit there?” she asked incredulously, and Audrey rolled her eyes. Anyone who knew him at all could see his mind working a mile a minute. 

“I'd join you, but I don't know that little dance you're doing,” he quipped, and Audrey chuckled. 

“If they're gonna kill us, just tell me now. Don't try to protect me,” Julia said nervously. 

“They're not going to kill us. We're no good to them dead,” Duke told her matter-of-factly. 

“We're good to them alive?”

“They didn't come here to play poker. They must have cased the boat and come back for a box. One that isn't here,” he motioned to the hold they were locked in. 

“Where is it?” Julia asked and Audrey huffed amusedly. Like he was going to answer that. 

“Where is it, indeed?” Audrey could feel his amusement. 

“And if they insist?” Julia asked pointedly. 

“Well, it wouldn't be the first time,” Duke said unconcernedly. 

“What happened to you?” Julia asked in disgust and Audrey winced at the venom in her voice and realized that it was about to get worse. 

“I'm not sure I get your meaning,” Duke said nonchalantly, but Audrey could feel his anxiety creeping in. 

“You were a big dreamer guy. You had all these plans. How'd you end up here?” Julia asked with a distasteful curl of her lip and Audrey just shook her head. It was called growing up and facing reality. Not everyone had doctor parents who could foot the bill for med school. She knew how easily she could have ended up being Duke. Growing up in the system like she did it was far more likely than not. 

“I happen to like it here,” Duke said defensively, and Audrey couldn’t help but smile. Of course, he did. She did wonder the answer to the same question though. Just not in the same tone obviously. 

“So this is who you are now,” Julia huffed. “I used to think you were the coolest guy. Turns out you're just a petty crook.” If this hadn’t been a memory Audrey would have smacked her for that. Even more so when she felt how deeply that had cut Duke. So much so that a brief flash of it even crossed his features. 

“No. I'm an exceptional crook,” he told her with fake-smugness to hide the hurt. 

“You're a delivery boy,” she sneered. 

“Sweetheart, calling me names isn't gonna get us anywhere right now,” Duke pointed out impatiently and the memory ended. 

Audrey sighed sadly, realizing that Duke expected her to react the same way, or possibly even worse, if she knew that much about what he did which was ridiculous. Did he really think she didn’t know all that? That there wasn’t a reason she never asked questions?


	12. Chapter 12

Audrey was glad that she was starting to understand Duke a little better, but then something dawned on her and she asked Nathan suspiciously, “Have you been sharing my memories with him?” 

“Yes,” Nathan admitted honestly. 

“Without my permission,” she said coldly, getting a nod. “And does he know you’re sharing his with me?” 

“No,” Nathan shook his head. 

“Why would you do this? Don’t you think that it’s a massive invasion of our privacy? An abuse of your trouble if ever there was one?” 

“Because I only have two weeks here,” Nathan told her, not to justify, but to explain. “I need to know that you can be happy while I’m gone. I need to know that you two will be together and okay. And I don’t have time to do it gently.” 

“That doesn’t make it right,” she snapped. 

“I know,” Nathan told her. “But I’ll be gone soon so it doesn’t really matter if you hate me for it. As long as you can work things out with each other.”

“So the ends justify the means is that it?” she asked with an annoyed huff. 

“In this case…yeah,” Nathan shrugged. 

Audrey considered asking what all he’d shown Duke from her memories, but decided that she didn’t want to know. In this case, ignorance was bliss. “I don’t even know what to say to you right now,” she said wearily. She had been trying to keep their friendship alive at least, but it was getting harder and harder to do so. She didn’t realize that was his intention. That he was trying to make it easier on her to lose him. 

“I should go, then,” Nathan said with a sad smile and she didn’t say a word as he walked out the door. 

The next morning, Duke still hadn’t decided what to do about the Audrey situation, but he did miss sharing their morning coffee that he’d been avoiding all week, so he made some up and headed upstairs at her normal wake-up time. She smiled brightly as she opened the door and grabbed a blanket to wrap around her and sit on the balcony for their coffee. She enjoyed the fresh air, but she wasn’t quite as immune to the cold as he was. Once she was sitting and he was leaning against the railing, they had a little small talk before Audrey blurted out, “You realize that I know what you do right?”

“What do you mean?” Duke asked confused. 

“I know that you’re a smuggler and a theif and conman and a gambler and probably other things I don’t even know about.”

“You don’t honestly expect me to admit to any of that do you?” Duke asked amusedly as he sipped his coffee. 

“No, and I’m not asking you to. I’m just telling you that I know. And it doesn’t matter to me,” she told him. 

“You’re a cop,” he pointed out. 

“Yeah, and?” she asked with a smirk. 

“You’re saying that you approve of my lifestyle? Assuming that I did lead the life you mentioned of course,” he backtracked a bit. 

“Approve? No. But I don’t necessarily disapprove either if that makes any sense.”

“It doesn’t,” he snorted. 

“What I mean is…that I accept you the way you are and I have no interest in trying to change you. Or trying to bust you. The reason I don’t ask questions isn’t because I don’t want anything to change our friendship or the way I see you. It’s because I don’t need to know and with my job it’s best that I don’t know details.” 

“I seem to remember you being very intent on busting me at one point,” Duke said wryly, not daring to believe what she was saying. 

“That was a long time ago,” she pointed out. “Before I really knew you. It took time to get you figured out and find our lines, but we’ve been past that for a long time.”

“Okay,” Duke said quietly, willing to at least think about believing it. 

“I could have easily been you, you know,” she said conversationally. 

Duke chuckled. “You? Ms. Law and order? I find that hard to believe.” 

Audrey took a deep shaky breath before telling him something that she’d never told anyone else before. “I killed a man when I was ten,” she said in almost a whisper. 

“Huh?” Duke asked inelegantly, barely managing to not drop his coffee. 

“He was the foster dad at a home I was staying in. I had been there for about a week. He hadn’t gotten around to me yet. They always check in more often for the first few weeks. But one of the other girls thought to warn me about him. How much he enjoyed foster daughters if you know what I mean. I snuck into her room that night and when he came in, I stabbed him in the neck with a pair of Mickey Mouse scissors,” she said hauntedly. 

“Audrey, I…” Duke’s throat closed up and he couldn’t get any more out, but he couldn’t help but move over and sit on the arm of her chair and run her fingers through her hair. It didn’t dawn on him until she leaned into the touch that after talking about that, touching her might not have been the best idea, but apparently it turned out okay and that brought to mind how much she trusted him and how safe she felt with him. 

“I never told anybody that before,” she whispered. “They blamed the other girl. Her room, her scissors, and what he was clearly caught in the act of doing…it was all brushed under the rug. If they had known though…”

“Then it would have gotten a lot murkier,” Duke nodded knowingly. It would have gotten into premeditation and entrapment issues and yeah, she probably would have gotten off, but there would most likely have at least been charges filed. “When I was ten I broke into my friend’s house while his family was on vacation. I robbed his dad’s safe and his mom’s jewelry box and fenced everything sellable down by the docks.” Given her job he wasn’t admitting to anything that was within the statute of limitations, but after she trusted him with that story, he had to give her something. 

When Audrey realized that there was no more coming, she asked, “Why?” making sure to keep any judgment out of her tone. 

“What do you mean?” Duke asked confused. 

“Well I told you why I did what I did. It’s your turn,” she said lightly, leaning her head against his shoulder. 

Duke sighed as he said, “Have you ever been so hungry that you can’t stop drinking water just so that you have something on your stomach to keep it from aching?” 

“No, I can’t say that I have,” Audrey said sadly. “You weren’t being fed wherever you were living?” 

“I was living wherever I could find a place to sleep,” Duke huffed. 

Audrey winced. She remembered him implying that he’d been homeless as a teenager, but so young… “You never told anyone? Tried to get help?” she asked curiously. 

“Of course I did,” Duke snorted derisively. “But where do you think I learned the art of the con? My mother was a master at it. She had friends at social services and would always get a heads up when they were coming. Before my dad’s house burned down, I lived there and she just showed up long enough to get the welfare checks every month and she would rush back in time to meet them and convince them that I was just acting out for one reason or another. I was so skinny because I was a picky eater. I was such a problem child.”

“What about after your dad’s house burned down?” 

“She had a lot of ‘male friends’ if you get my drift. She’d offer a freebie if she could use their house for a little while and pretend to be her boyfriend that we were living with. She’d come get me and take me there. If I didn’t let her, she’d tell social services that I ran away. Either way I was always painted with the same brush so eventually I stopped bothering,” he shrugged. “I learned how to take care of myself. To get what I needed to survive.” 

Audrey knew that the last thing he wanted was her pity, so she didn’t give it to him. Instead she gave him her respect. “You’re a survivor. That’s nothing to be ashamed of, no matter how you go about it.” 

Duke closed his eyes and took a deep breath as he realized that maybe they really did have a chance. “So are you,” he told her softly. “You did what you had to do. To protect yourself and that other girl and who knows how many in the future.” 

Audrey took a shaky breath and nodded before looking up at him and the emotion was laying so thick in the air that it could be cut with a knife. “Duke, I…” she breathed out, but lost her nerve as she reached out and brushed back the lock of hair that always seemed to come out of his ponytail. 

Duke swallowed heavily as her hand brushed his cheek and he leaned down and kissed her passionately and it was even more than Colorado. When she leaned into him, the chair nearly fell over, but he managed to stand up and pull her with him without even breaking the kiss and she plastered herself against him as she kissed him back greedily. Duke picked her up and sat her on the railing, one arm tight around her back as the other moved over her face and neck and shoulders and through her hair. Duke’s hair was almost entirely down due to her hand sliding through it and his lips moved to her neck as her other hand slid over his shoulder blades trying to pull him as close as humanly possible. 

Neither of them heard the footsteps before they came around the corner and there was a muttered, “Crap. Sorry.” 

Duke groaned and let his forehead fall to her shoulder as she blushed brightly and covered her face. “Your timing freaking sucks, Nate,” Duke grumbled, pulling a giggle from Audrey. 

“Sorry,” he said again with a wince. “We got a case, but I can just…”

“No, it’s fine,” Audrey assured him, though not particularly happy about it. “It’s my job right?” 

“Okay, I’ll wait downstairs then,” Nathan said making a quick exit. 

Audrey sighed heavily, running her hand through Duke’s completely messed up hair. “Duke…” she started, but bit her lip nervously as she realized that she had no idea which of the hundred things running through her mind right now she wanted to say. 

Duke took a deep breath before picking his head up to look at her, cradling her cheek in his hand. “I’ll cook you dinner tonight? Work permitting?” 

“Yeah,” she said with a relieved breath. “I’d love that. And I’ll make sure to call if I’m running late.”

Duke leaned in for one more slow probing kiss which she returned happily before he moved back and helped her down off the railing. “I’ll see you tonight then,” he whispered and she smiled brightly, running her hand down his arm and squeezing his hand as she walked off.


	13. Chapter 13

When the night of the meteor shower rolled around, Nathan headed to the Grey Gull. Duke and Audrey had been joined at the hip every spare moment so he knew that he would find them together. He just hoped that he wouldn’t be interrupting anything again. Audrey had wanted to come along to the barn though, and since he didn’t have his boat anymore he needed a ride anyway, even if Duke wouldn’t insist on coming with her. He’d been more than a little anxious about the whole thing and probably wouldn’t completely relax until it was over and she was still here. Jordan and as much backup as she wanted to bring would be meeting them there, and Nathan fully expected Vince to be there too. 

He hadn’t specifically gone to tell Vince, but he knew that the guard would have and he caught the curious and nervous glances from the big man over the last week and a half. Not to mention the fact that he couldn’t have missed him signing everything over to Audrey and training her to be the new chief. The story was that he was leaving town to start a new life somewhere else and Audrey bought his house from him. No one else needed to know that she got all his money too. He’d left the files of six potential detectives on her desk, having weeded out the best candidates, but she would be the one working with them on a daily basis so she could choose from there. Everything was as ready as it could be. 

It turned out that Duke and Audrey were sitting at the bar waiting for him and there were very few words as they’d headed out. Everything that needed to be said had already been said. Including Audrey figuring out why he was being so insensitive and rude and deciding to overlook that and stay his friend. They met up with the guard, including Vince and Dave, at the dock and they all made their way to the clearing. It wasn’t until Howard confirmed for the whole group that Nathan would have to be the one to go that everyone finally believed it and the whole tenor of the group changed. 

Most of the guard dispersed, surrounding the clearing in the treeline just to be safe, but allowing for more private goodbyes. Nathan’s goodbye to Vince and Dave was relatively quick and easy before they stepped back and let him get to the hard ones. Jordan had stayed close, wanting a real goodbye. Even if they hadn’t actually been together since Nathan came back from the past, they had been before and she really had cared about him even if they both had ulterior motives in the relationship. Nathan moved on to her next and told her a partial lie, but one that he knew she needed to hear anyway. “I really did care about you, you know?” 

Jordan nodded, tears in her eyes, and said, “I cared about you too,” before she gave him a hard kiss. “Thank you,” she whispered. For both that and for taking the troubles away. 

He just smiled and squeezed her hand before moving on to Duke. “I couldn’t have asked for a better brother,” he told him pulling him into a crushing hug. “Take good care of her and don’t ever let anything tear you apart,” he whispered. 

“I promise,” Duke said solemnly, voice heavy with emotion. “Thank you for bringing us together, even if I don’t like how you did it.”

“It was the least I could do for you both,” Nathan told him, giving him one more pat on the back before stepping back and Audrey pulled him into a warm hug next. “Hold on tight to him. Don’t let him run scared.” 

“I won’t,” she promised. “Thank you, Nathan. For him and for taking my place here. You’ve given me a life and love. I won’t forget it.” 

“The best way to thank me would be for you to make the best of it. Have everything you’ve ever dreamed of,” Nathan said before pulling back and kissing her cheek. “Goodbye,” he said as much to the whole group as to her as he turned and walked into the barn. 

Howard stuck around a moment to talk to Audrey, “I am glad that you have the chance to live now, though I will miss you.” 

Audrey smiled and hugged him too, the emotions getting to be too much for her. “Thanks. I might just miss you too,” she chuckled. 

“Your identity was created for temporary use, but I’ve made the modifications needed for permanent use. Your name has stayed the same, but you will want to familiarize yourself with your new birthday and social security number.” 

“Thank you,” Audrey said relieved, having been worried about that. “Will I see you when you come back again?”

“Perhaps,” Howard said cryptically as he turned and headed for the barn himself. They all stayed there until the barn disappeared and Jordan immediately ripped off her gloves and grabbed the nearest person to her in a teary hug which just happened to be Dave who laughed as he returned the hug. 

More than twenty-five years later:

Dr. Lucassi entered the chief of police’s office, much slower than he used to be when he was young, and placed a file on her desk. “I thought you might want to see this. The only candidate for the general medicine opening at the hospital.”

Audrey furrowed her brow confusedly and opened the file only to gasp as the picture with it caught her eye. “Nathan,” she breathed out. 

“Robert Hansen,” Dr. Lucassi corrected. 

“Right. That’s gonna take some getting used to,” Audrey sighed, having a new appreciation for everything that the older residents of the town went through in the past when she’d come back with new identities. “When does he arrive?” 

“According to the itinerary he sent, he’ll be getting into town tonight and starting work on Monday,” she was told. 

She wasn’t sure why she was surprised. The troubles had been back for a couple years now, though they weren’t too bad yet. She’d half expected him to come back as some kind of law enforcement, but realized that had been a silly assumption. Sarah had been a nurse, Lucy was a drifter, and the personality that never was, Lexi, had been a bartender, so there was clearly no rule at what kind of job the trouble-helpers had to have. If she had known anything about the alternate Haven that had been a part of the avoided future she might have found it ironic that he was coming back as Dr. Hansen, but since she didn’t the connection was missed. 

The next morning was a Saturday, so she positioned herself near the bed and breakfast in an attempt to run into him and sure enough she did literally that as he walked out of the café next door. Thankfully no coffee was spilled on either of them, barely managing to avoid that and she said, “I don’t think I’ve seen you around before. You just visiting?” It was almost tourist season. 

“No, moving here actually. I just accepted a job at the hospital,” he told her. “Bob Hansen,” he introduced himself. 

“Audrey Crocker,” she told him shaking his hand. 

“Well since you’re moving here, I’d be glad to show you around if you have some time,” she offered. “Not something I do for the tourists,” she whispered conspiratorially. 

“Yeah, I think I’d like that,” he said relieved. “Learning to get around a new place is always nerve-wracking.” 

“Excellent,” she said, keenly aware of the fact that she was old enough to be his mother so it wasn’t likely he was reading too much into it. “My husband is out of town for the weekend on business and I wasn’t looking forward to being bored,” she chuckled, just to make it even more clear. 

“I can imagine,” ‘Bob’ said as he turned to follow her down the street. “Do you have any kids?”

“Two,” she told him. “My daughter is off at college studying marine biology, but my son is here in town. He’s a rookie at the police department.”

“And what do you and your husband do?” Bob asked curiously. 

“I’m the police chief and my husband owns a restaurant and bar as well as some real estate among other things best not mentioned,” she laughed. “You’re staying at the inn?” 

“Just until I find an apartment,” he told her. 

“There’s an apartment above our restaurant if you want to take a look. We’re rather picky about tenants so we don’t advertise it, but I’m sure a doctor wouldn’t be a problem tenant,” she offered. 

“Sure, I’ll take a look,” Bob easily agreed as they turned onto main street. “What kind of things are there to do in this town?”

“Oh a lot of things,” she told him. “Most of the bars aren’t open late, including the Grey Gull. Everything closes by midnight at the latest, but other than that, there’s a wide variety…including quite a bit that I’m not supposed to know about,” she whispered the last part amusedly pulling a laugh from Bob. 

“I’m more interested in other things anyway. Museums, libraries, that sort of thing,” he told her. 

“Oh then this might interest you,” she stopped and pointed across the street. “The Haven Herald Museum.” 

“A museum about a newspaper?” he asked curiously as they crossed. 

“As much about the men who ran it as the newspaper itself, but yeah. Vince and Dave Teagues were something like legends around here. The newspaper itself shut down about seventeen years ago when they both died within hours of each other of old age. They were brothers and as close as any brothers could be. We brought in people from outside to run one last edition that was entirely dedicated to them and their lives and then shut it all down and turned it into a museum,” she explained as they looked around. “This was the last edition,” she showed him the preserved and laminated pages that included hundreds of testimonials and a dozen pictures of them. 

“This is the kind of thing you never see in the big city,” he said contentedly as he looked around, planning to come back for a more in-depth look later. “No one cares about some random newspaper men there.” 

“Well this isn’t the big city, and we like it that way,” Audrey chuckled. “You’re from the city then?”

“Indianapolis,” he told her as they walked out. “I decided that I wanted a change and when I saw a position for a small town doctor, I jumped at the chance.”

She showed him around a bit more before they stopped at Haven Joe’s for lunch and she took him back to the Gull to show him the apartment. “That’s where my husband and I keep our boat docked,” she pointed over. “When he’s gone on business I usually stay in the spare room at my son’s house.” Which had once been Nathan’s house. Duke had talked her into keeping it and renting it out until their kids got old enough and then it went to their son. 

“I really like this place,” Bob said with a smile as he looked around. “It’s rustic but it’s got a real homey feel. Almost familiar-like.” 

“Well you’re welcome to move in whenever you like,” she offered, knowing that Duke wouldn’t mind at all. They had basically been saving this apartment for him by unspoken agreement anyway. Ten minutes later she had a check for the rest of this month and next month’s rent and he was headed back to the bed and breakfast to get his stuff. 

When Duke got back the next evening, it was all he could do not to hug his old friend, but managed to keep it casual and ‘meet’ him for the first time. He didn’t hesitate to invite him to dinner though where they got to know Bob Hansen.


End file.
